So many things contained in fewer than 140 characters. We can see that the writer is poorly educated in the Bible, or perhaps just functionally illiterate. We can see that the writer is an expert, though, at being a paid professional victim, who is willing to tell morons that they face jail time for their beliefs when there is literally zero threat of anything like that.

Dear Matthew: When Jesus said that thing about his followers being hated for his sake, he didn’t immediately follow it up with, “So this is your license to be as obnoxious, ignorant and bigoted as you’d like because what the hell.” You’re obviously adding that to the text in your mind. Stop doing that. And please, do stop comparing yourself to Jesus. Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, I think we can all agree that no one has ever accused you of being “Christ-like.”

]]>https://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2013/12/38467/feed/11Mother/Father Of The Year Disinvites Gay Kid From Child’s Birthday Partyhttps://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2013/06/35496/
https://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2013/06/35496/#commentsMon, 03 Jun 2013 16:11:37 +0000http://www.truthwinsout.org/?p=35496This letter went viral this weekend. As it always it with these sorts of things, who knows if it’s one-hundred percent legit, but the fact that it’s highly believable — the fact that I knew “Christian parents” like this growing up — speaks for itself. Why can’t you go to little Timmy’s birthday party, gay kid?

It’s comforting to know that the parent also disinvites drug dealers, axe murderers and Islamic terrorists from birthday parties. They’re just everywhere!

]]>https://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/12/32378/feed/8Are You Ready For ‘Frankenstorm?’https://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/10/31050/
https://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/10/31050/#commentsFri, 26 Oct 2012 16:53:53 +0000http://www.truthwinsout.org/?p=31050Here is the latest on the storm — and it’s looking scary:

Hurricane Sandy will probably grow into a “Frankenstorm” that may become the worst to hit the U.S. Northeast in 100 years if current forecasts are correct.

Sandy may combine with a second storm coming out of the Midwest to create a system that would rival the New England hurricane of 1938 in intensity, said Paul Kocin, a National Weather Service meteorologist in College Park, Maryland. The hurricane currently passing the Bahamas has killed 21 people across the Caribbean, the Associated Press reported, citing local officials.

“What we’re seeing in some of our models is a storm at an intensity that we have not seen in this part of the country in the past century,” Kocin said in a telephone interview yesterday. “We’re not trying to hype it, this is what we’re seeing in some of our models. It may come in weaker.”

Are you prepared for the potential monster? Is it more media hype or is this the big one? I’m having to cancel some work-related travel plans. What are you doing to prepare?

The editorial board of ABC Newspapers, a group that owns several newspapers in central Minnesota, published an editorial encouraging readers to vote against a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would deny same-sex couples the freedom to marry. Needless to say, that didn’t sit well with Lindquist, a notorious opponent of LGBT rights who publicly refers to homosexuality as a “sexual disorder.” So he wrote a letter to the editor in response, in which he claims, among other things, that gay and lesbian parents molest their children. It’s a doozy:

To the Editor:

This is in response to the editorial from the ECM Editorial Board titled “Marriage amendment would suppress freedom” (Oct. 5).

While they agree with the fact that “Children do best when they are raised by a mother and a father…” they also suggest that “… children will thrive in environments in which they are loved by two parents, regardless of the gender make-up of those parents.” This simply is not true.

University of Texas Professor Mark Regnerus did a study on homosexual parenting. His excellent research was published in the well-respected academic journal, “Social Science Research.”

The Regnerus study is the largest of its kind to date (just under 3,000 interviews of 18- to 39-year-olds), and is the most thorough and comprehensive study ever done on this topic.

Here are some of his findings that reveal greater child endangerment in same-sex households than households headed by a mom and a dad:

Parental pedophilia: 23 percent of children with a lesbian mother reported having been touched sexually by a parent or adult, compared with 2 percent of those raised by biological parents.

Higher number of rape cases: 31 percent of children raised by a lesbian mother and 25 percent raised by a homosexual male report that they were forced to have sex against their will, compared to 8 percent from intact families.

Suicidal tendencies are shocking: 24 percent of children raised by homosexual men and 12 percent of children raised by lesbian mothers admitted to having recently contemplated suicide, compared to 5 percent of those raised by biological parents or even a single parent.

This study proves that children are better off when raised by their biological mom and dad.

The ECM Editorial Board is wrong. Children raised in homes where homosexuality or other same-sex behaviors are present face increased risks.

The social experiment of legalizing same-sex unions will prove disastrous for kids and bring untold dysfunction and damage to children and society.

Vote “yes” on the Marriage Protection Amendment on Nov. 6 and help protect the children in Minnesota.

Bryan Lindquist
Ramsey

Of course, the “study” Lindquist cites, that of University of Texas Professor Mark Regnerus, has been widelydiscredited for its flawed methodology, wildly inaccurate conclusions, and allegations of partiality, to name just three examples. (If you’d like further information, Scott Rose of the New Civil Rights Movement has written extensively about the bankruptcy of this so-called “study.”) In short, it’s junk science. But because it’s junk science that happens to legitimize anti-LGBT bigotry, homophobes like Lindquist are more than happy to cite its bogus statistics in service of their anti-equality agenda.

Think it’s unconscionable that a proponent of such awful anti-gay lies should be entrusted to serve on a task force charged with protecting kids — including LGBT kids — from bullying and harassment? We do too. But Anoka-Hennepin School Board Chair Tom Heidemann, who appointed Lindquist to the task force, apparently doesn’t see it that way. He defended his decision earlier this week when he spoke with a local television station, and again in an interview that aired today on Minnesota Public Radio. Heidemann said,

“[Lindquist] brings a conservative-Christian point of view to the committee and also a commitment to making sure that there’s no bullying and harassment of students in school for any reason.”

Just so we’re clear, the conservative Christian, homophobic “point of view” that Heidemann’s referring to is the same one — religion-based anti-LGBT bigotry — that leaves a trail of dead teens. But in the Anoka-Hennepin School District — one with bullying and suicide problems so severe that the State of Minnesota declared it a “suicide contagion area” — it’s still apparently a point of view worthy of respect and consideration.

Will the nightmare ever end for the LGBT kids of Central Minnesota?

]]>https://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/10/31025/feed/20‘Praying Away the Gay’ in Scandinaviahttps://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/10/31020/
https://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/10/31020/#commentsThu, 25 Oct 2012 18:41:59 +0000http://www.truthwinsout.org/?p=31020Sure enough, it looks like thanks to Andy Comiskey’s Desert Stream Ministries, the “ex-gay” myth has taken a foothold in Finland.

A circle of six men sit in a small cabin. Two blocks of wood serve as a cross. The men’s eyes wander to the walls. My cheeks are slightly flushed – I feel ashamed. I have just revealed something that made me go silent.
The leader of the group opens his mouth but does not look me in the eye.
“Is it all right to pray for you?”
Well, yes.
I hunch over, my elbows on my legs. Four men place their hands on my shoulders. One places his hand on my side. I flinch at the touch.

“Lord, you heard what Jalmari just shared with us. You know what sins he has committed, and you will also forgive them as he brings them here before the cross. Thank you, Lord, for allowing Jalmari to understand and accept his own frailties. Jalmari still has a long road ahead of him, but you already heard his plea. Fill Jalmari now with our love, take him into your embrace, and let him suckle of your love as a child does of his mother’s breast. Heal him. Thank you Lord.”
Two of the men mumble something in tongues, and then it is completely silent.
The head of the group takes a white plastic cup from the table, makes a dipper out of the palm of his hand, pours water into it and touches my brow with it.
“Lord, cast the evil spirit out of Jalmari.”
It is completely silent, and nobody says anything.

It is Sunday morning, the fifth of August. The time is half past ten. The announcement on Intercity 905 sounds out: next station – Jyväskylä. My alarm clock had gone off at half past five in Helsinki. Now I am already here.
I get off the train. My ill-fitting backpack chafes against my shoulders. A fuzzy-haired young woman stands on the platform with a sign in her hand. The text written with a black marking pen on the piece of cardboard reads “Kiponiemi”. I know that the woman is waiting for me. My breath accelerates. Now is the time – now it begins.
I approach cautiously. I wipe my sweaty hand against my thigh, reach out my hand and introduce myself: “Jalmari – you can call me Jamppu.”

Jalmari is the third of my given names. I cannot use the first, because if I did, I might be identified as a journalist.
I place my backpack in the boot, and sit in the back seat. The fuzzy-haired woman starts the car.
Let us sing praises to the lord is the song that comes from the car radio.

According to the Aslan association, homosexuality is a psycho-social disturbance in development – a kind of spiritual damage.
Medicine disagrees. Homosexuality has not been classified as a disease since 1981. However, the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) still has a classification of “ego-dystonic sexual orientation disorder” – an orientation that goes against the person’s idealised self-image. However, this diagnosis is hardly ever applied.
The reparative therapy programme brought to Finland by Aslan is called Living Water. The expression comes from the Gospel According to John in Bible: He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Once a year a four-day intensive camp is organised with activities running nearly around the clock. This is what I am taking part in now.

If you are fed up hearing your Jewish mother and grandparents kvetching that you’ve got to find already a Jewish prince or princess, despair no more – Yenta is here to help.

Yenta, meaning matchmaker in Yiddish, is the Jewish answer to Grindr, it’s a new dating app available on the iPhone that uses GPS to match Jewish singles, straight or gay.

Now you can sing along to fiddler on the roof: ‘Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make me a match, Find me a find, catch me a catch’ and in seconds you may find your ‘Jewboo’, a term used by the application for a match.

The app so easy to use that even your Jewish grandmother could join without giving you a guilt complex.

A Jewish-only version of Grindr… who’d a thunk it? What do you think about this new app? Good idea? Bad idea? Would you consider using it?

]]>https://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/10/31016/feed/3Shocking: Romney Refused to Offer Accurate Birth Certificates to Children of Same-Sex Coupleshttps://www.truthwinsout.org/news/2012/10/30998/
https://www.truthwinsout.org/news/2012/10/30998/#commentsThu, 25 Oct 2012 16:38:33 +0000http://www.truthwinsout.org/?p=30998In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court legalized marriage equality, finding that the state had no compelling reason to “deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry.” Minor adjustments were presumably needed in the many agencies of state government that deal with marriage and family in order to bring Massachusetts into compliance with the court’s ruling. One such agency, the Registry of Vital Records and Statistics, said that it needed to modify the parental designations on birth certificates in order to be inclusive of same-sex parents.

However, the Boston Globe has uncovered extensive documentation showing that then-Governor Mitt Romney, an outspoken opponent of marriage equality who also opposed child-rearing by gay and lesbian couples, refused to accept the Registry of Vital Records plan, opting instead to convey his disdain for same-sex parents by making the process of obtaining accurate birth certificates for their children as difficult and cumbersome as possible.

He rejected the Registry of Vital Records plan and insisted that his top legal staff individually review the circumstances of every birth to same-sex parents. Only after winning approval from Romney’s lawyers could hospital officials and town clerks across the state be permitted to cross out by hand the word “father’’ on individual birth certificates, and then write in “second parent,’’ in ink.

Divisions between the governor’s office and state bureaucrats over the language on the forms and details about the extraordinary effort by the Republican governor to prevent routine recording of births to gay parents are contained in state records obtained by the Globe this month. [emphases added]

According to the Globe‘s report, the practice of refusing to issue accurate birth certificates for the children of same-sex couples without what the paper calls a “high-level legal review” continued for the duration of Romney’s gubernatorial term. A lawyer for the Massachusetts Department of Health, which oversees the Registry of Vital Records and Statistics, warned the Romney administration that such onerous requirements violated state law and could actually harm children of same-sex couples later in life, but the warning was ignored.

Crossouts and handwritten alterations constituted “violations of existing statutes’’ and harmed “the integrity of the vital record-keeping system,’’ the deputy general counsel of the department, Peggy Wiesenberg, warned in a confidential Dec. 13, 2004, memo to Mark Nielsen, Romney’s general counsel.

The changes also would impair law enforcement and security efforts in a post-9/11 world, she said, and children with altered certificates would be likely to “encounter [difficulties] later in life . . . as they try to register for school, or apply for a passport or a driver’s license, or enlist in the military, or register to vote.” [emphasis added]

Most of the birth-certificate reviews appeared superficial, but records obtained by the Globe make it clear that Romney’s office was looking for any excuse to deny these requests:

In one instance, in which a couple asked that the handwritten alteration for the second parent say “wife” instead of second parent, the request was denied. In another, [Romney lawyer] Leske refused to allow a birth certificate to be issued listing a same-sex couple as the parents because they were not married.

That’s right: Governor Romney opposed the right of same-sex couples to marry in the first place, and then his lawyers refused a same-sex couple’s request that both partners be listed on their newborn’s birth certificate — because they weren’t married.

Mitt Romney’s humiliating birth-certificate review requirement apparently only applied to married lesbian couples in which one of the two spouses gave birth. Gay male couples had it even worse — the Romney administration required them to obtain a court order before they would authorize changes to a child’s birth certificate and acknowledge the parenthood of both fathers.

In 2005, the Massachusetts’ Town Clerks Association publicly complained about the Romney administration’s refusal to allow updated birth certificate forms, calling the handwritten alterations mandated by the governor’s policy “inappropriate.” Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom — now a trusted adviser and top aide on Romney’s presidential campaign — claimed that changes to official forms could only be made through an act of the state Legislature; however, Department of Public Health attorney Wiesenberg told the administration one year earlier that the DPH had the authority to make the changes, but a Romney staff lawyer rebuffed her via email, saying that “there appear to be many complicated issues that should be discussed with many different communities before the changes are made.’’

Excuse me?!? The Romney administration believed that acknowledging the children of same-sex couples was a “complicated issue” that needed to be “discussed with many different communities?” Please explain, Mitt: exactly how many “different communities” do you think gay and lesbian couples should have to obtain permission from before you’ll allow both spouses to be legally recognized as parents to their own children?

According to the Globe, the Romney campaign has declined to comment on this story.

LGBT-inclusive parental designations did not appear on birth certificate forms in the State of Massachusetts until Mitt Romney left office to pursue the presidency and Democratic Governor Deval Patrick succeeded him.

I am absolutely stunned and incredibly disturbed by the Globe‘s findings. The fact that Mitt Romney would go so far out of his way to humiliate and degrade same-sex couples, even as they celebrated one of life’s most profoundly joyous experiences — the birth of a child — displays a level of contempt for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people and our families that can only be described as shocking. Romney’s record, both as Governor of Massachusetts and as a presidential candidate, demonstrates that he’s not satisfied with “merely” opposing the rights of LGBT people to be protected from bullying, to marry the person they love, and to start families. No, his enmity towards us is so deeply pervasive and so viciously fervent that he has no problem actively harming our children.

Such a cruel and heartless man doesn’t deserve to govern anyone, much less serve as President of the United States.

]]>https://www.truthwinsout.org/news/2012/10/30998/feed/10Maryland Anti-Marriage Campaign Jumps Aboard the ‘Ex-Gay’ Bandwagonhttps://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/10/30923/
Tue, 23 Oct 2012 16:52:58 +0000http://www.truthwinsout.org/?p=30923On Friday the Maryland Marriage Alliance, a coalition of anti-equality religious conservatives working to prevent the passage of Question 6, which would allow the state’s marriage equality law to take effect, held a “town hall meeting” on marriage. (This political event was held in Baltimore’s Manna Bible Baptist Church, so it may not even have been legal, but that’s another story.)

Quinlan is in rare form. After he’s introduced at the 9:15 mark, Quinlan proclaims himself to be “ex-gay,” then compliments himself for looking three decades younger than his 54 years and jokes that his “chemically-dependent” hair needs to be fixed right now. After that merry romp through the garden of gay stereotypes, Quinlan trots out his usual routine wherein he claims that abuse and sexual molestation made him gay but that Jesus brought him out of “the lifestyle.” He then claims that gays and lesbians are innately sick, alleges the existence of “thousands upon thousands of ex-gays” despite the fact that even Exodus’s Alan Chambers now admits that “ex-gay” programs don’t work, smears Ellen DeGeneres as “Ellen DeGenerate” (48:10), and patronizingly panders to the African Americans in the crowd by adopting a stereotypically black speech cadence. Watch it below; it’s quite the performance.

Quinlan’s presence on an official Maryland Marriage Alliance panel — he’s seated just two chairs away from Maryland Marriage Alliance Executive Director Derek McCoy — is significant because it represents the group’s tacit endorsement of the “pray away the gay” fraud. By embracing the utterly discredited myth that gays and lesbians can (and should) change their sexual orientation, the Maryland Marriage Alliance is showing its true colors and revealing that its real motivation is not the “protection of marriage,” but pure, unadulterated homophobic bigotry. And as I said when we found out about the involvement of “ex-gays” in the push for marriage discrimination in Minnesota, it also shows that they won’t be satisfied with merely preventing same-sex couples from being able to marry. Rather, their goal is the relegation of LGBT people to second-class status in every aspect of society.

Hooper also points out something that’s even more disturbing: on two separate occasions (the first time at the 37:50 mark in the video above, the second time in the video below at around 3:20), the speaker seated immediately to McCoy’s left — identified by Zack Ford at ThinkProgress as Pastor Robert Anderson — says that homosexuality leads to death. In the first clip, this “pastor” even claims that gays and lesbians — and our straight allies — “are deserving of death:”

The Scriptures in Leviticus 18:22 — you know what that says: that a man is not to lay down with another man. If they do that, it’s an abomination. But there is one verse I really wanted to drive home and then I’ll stop. But that’s in Romans Chapter 1, and it’s the very last verse; as you know, Paul addresses this. Listen to the last verse: “Knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are deserving of death. Not only do the same” — but watch this — “for those who also approve of those who practice these things.”

If we don’t vote against it, then we are approving these things that are worthy of death.”

That’s right. The Maryland Marriage Alliance is going far beyond mere political campaigning here — their extremist rhetoric puts them in the company of notorious anti-gay extremists like Archbishop JohnNienstedt, Australian Salvation Army Major Andrew Craibe, and the Westboro Baptist Church.

Watch the second video below.

These videos from the Maryland Marriage Alliance make one thing abundantly clear: a vote against Question 6, in support of MMA’s agenda, is a vote of support for the belief that those who favor LGBT equality deserve death. Marylanders would do well to remember that when they go to the polls next month.